"A work of art is never finished," a former professor of mine prompted, "it is only...?"

"Um, published?" I offered. He laughed.

Yesterday evening I gave a copy of "Game Night" to the First Run Film Festival (see previous post); the festival had a working copy of the film from January - this is the copy they judged - but I needed to deliver them the high quality copy that they will screen in front of an audience on March 24.

You might be tempted to think that this means the film is done. It is very close; it is probably 98% done. But we need another couple hours in the mix studio. We need to tweak the opening titles. We need to adjust the colors a bit in one or two shots.

The correct response to my professor's prompt was, "A work of art is never finished, it is only abandoned." (The quote is attributed variously to Leonardo Da Vinci, the poet Paul Valery, novelist/ filmmaker Jean Cocteau, and others.) In other words, it is possible to work on the same film, poem, book, painting, etc. forever. People see it only when its creators decide that it is ready, and 'ready' is very different from 'done.'

So the version that will screen at the First Run Festival is quite ready. The version we make over the next few days will be more ready. Down the line, we might make a version that's even more ready than that. But however much more time we spend tweaking "Game Night," I witnessed a moment of magic yesterday when for the first time we brought together the color-timed image with the full sound design. It was, for the first time, a movie rather than a work in progress. This moment, which one gets only once per movie, never fails to make my heart gallop.

Thank you all again, most sincerely, for everything you've done to make this possible.

- David Ketterer, Director

PS. We've got the production stills online now, and we'll be sharing them with the relevant backers momentarily! If in the next few hours you haven't seen them let us know.

The First Run Film Festival is NYU's home game. It's the showcase of senior year undergrad and select graduate films. We are proud to say that "Game Night" will begin its festival journey here at 8:30pm on March 24 - if you live in New York, please join us! We can't wait for this opening night.

In the meantime, we created a Facebook page! If you're among the 750 million people on that website please hit the "Like" button at the link below:

As for the movie itself? Today we finished our color timing with Vlad Kucherov. Later this week our sound designer Patrick Burgess will take us through the final mix session, where we adjust the volume and balance of each sound effect and line of dialogue (the director Sidney Lumet once called this "the only boring part of filmmaking"... ummm well it's not thrilling but it sure beats logging footage).